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Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene has come and gone, just like that, like the snap of a finger. In truth, for all our preparations, Hurricane Irene was a no-show for us but not for others. She never came to dinner and stayed around a while to wreak her havoc.

She came and went like a ghost, only half of what she was coming out of the Caribbean and rushing up the Northeast Coast. By many and varied accounts, she was a giant, swirling, dangerous mass of low pressure fed by warm open water on a track to do destruction.

And so, we capitulated to her, entirely, willingly, for better or worse. In the end, most of us would heartily agree, we did better preparing for her and overprotecting ourselves than paying no attention whatsoever to what might have been.

What might have been and how we get all riled up about that and then ultimately all let down is always the problem with hurricane meteorological predictions such as those we studied for about four days before the storm finally hit. And when it hit on Sunday, what remained of it was immediately a great disappointment to many because it did not have the power to destroy us or to disrupt us from doing what we wanted in our lives.

Revere escaped major damage everywhere. There was virtually no flooding throughout the city, which is an accomplishment. Speaking with members of the council who scoured the low-lying areas of their wards for difficulties, none could be found. Again, it is easy to see the value of infrastructure improvements where flooding used to be a major issue.

In other parts of the state – down the Cape and in Western Massachusetts – there were power outages and severe flooding. The specter of further flooding remains into the early days of this week because of the excess of rain and the already soaked nature of the soil as well as rivers and streams already at capacity due to an unusually rainy summer.

For Revere, Irene wasn’t a hurricane.

The towing of automobiles on Revere Beach caused some outrage for local residents but safety-first rules when it comes to a hurricane barreling down on us.

It was windy and rainy. The tides ran high locally but that was about it.

We’re lucky Hurricane Irene didn’t show herself fully in this area.

Had she done so, there would have been substantial damage, dislocation and chaos.

We were very lucky this time – but then – this is what New England weather is all about.